The present invention relates generally to the field of computer systems, and more particularly to dialog systems.
A dialog system or conversational agent is a computer system programmed for conversing with a human by using a coherent structure. Dialog systems have employed text, speech, graphics, haptics, gestures, and other modes for communication on both the input and the output channels.
Natural language processing (NLP) is a field of computer science, artificial intelligence, and linguistics concerned with the interactions between computers and human (natural) languages. Generally speaking, NLP systems use machine learning to analyze and derive meaning from textual corpora (that is, sets of textual content). Natural language dialog systems create natural interaction mechanisms for human-computer interactions. State of the art rule-based dialog systems rely on manually-developed rules.
A parse tree (also known as a parsing tree or derivation tree) is an ordered, rooted tree that represents the syntactic structure of a string according to some context-free grammar. Parse trees have structure and elements that reflect the syntax of the input language. Parse trees are based on similar principles as sentence diagrams, which are often used for grammar teaching in schools.